1. is a statistical question.
I wonder if,
“Do you like sports?”
is a statistical question.
I wonder if, “Do you like sports?” is a statistical question?
What makes a question a statistical question?

2. In this lesson you will learn how to define a statistical question by comparing examples and non=examples.

3. Let’s review by looking at the important elements of a graph
Let’s review by looking at the important elements of a graph. The title appears at the top and includes a summary of the question asked. Each of the bars are labeled and the y axis has a title, “Subjects” which summarizes the answers. The x-axis here is the number of students with the numbers spaced evenly and the axis title below. The population that was surveyed here is stated at the bottom.

4. A common mistake that students make is asking questions that have too few or too many answers. Look at these questions and imagine what how the graphs might look.

5. Let’s begin with the question, “Do you like math
Let’s begin with the question, “Do you like math?” When 6th graders at Madras Middle School were asked this question, here were their responses. This is not a statistical question because there are only 2 possible answer choices – yes or no.

6. When the question is changed to “What is your favorite subject in school?” there are a variety of answers and interesting information is given. This is a great example of a statistical question.

7. Now let’s look at the other question, “What do you like best about school?” Let’s imagine how this graph might look. Whoa! There are so many answers that everyone gave a different answer, except for computers which received 2 votes. This is not a statistical question because there are too many answer choices. The number of answers given is called, “variability”. Statistical questions should ideally have about variability of 4-6 answers. Also, this graph does not include the population that was sampled, or surveyed. Do you think the responses would be different if adults were asked this question instead of students?

8. Let’s look at another question. “What is your favorite sport on TV
Let’s look at another question. “What is your favorite sport on TV?” Is this a statistical question? How much variability would you expect, in other words, how many answer choices would you expect? Here is how the graph looks. Was it what you expected? It includes an interesting question, the population that was surveyed, and variability in the responses.

9. Imagine how this data might be different if the people surveyed were the members of the University of Connecticut football team. How would you expect the graph to look? Not surprising, but all of the responses were for football. This had an interesting question and the population surveyed is stated, but there is no variability in the responses. This is not a statistical question.

10. Expects a variety of answers.
A statistical question asks about a topic of interest, includes a specific population, and has variability in the responses.

11. In this lesson you learned how to define a statistical question by comparing examples and non-examples .  Check slides. You did not use this objective in the Reviewing objective slide.

12. Try this problem on your own. Which of these is a statistical question
Try this problem on your own. Which of these is a statistical question? Is chocolate your favorite ice cream flavor? or What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Which question will give you a variety of answers? The first question asks a question in which the only answers are yes or no. The second question will bring many more responses, so it is a statistical question.

13. How many miles do I live from school?
How many miles do the students in my school live from school?
LearnZillion Notes:
--”Quick Quiz” is an easy way to check for student understanding at the end of a lesson. On this slide, you’ll simply display 2 problems that are similar to the previous examples. That’s it! You won’t be recording a video of this slide and when teachers download the slides, they’ll direct their students through the example on their own so you don’t need to show an answer to the question.
In the lesson set, I recommended the questions be
How many miles do I live from school?
and
How many miles do the students in my school live from school?
They are similar, but can focus on the variability of responses.

14. How many books did you read today?
How many books did the students at Roberts Middle School read this summer?
How many books did you read today?
LearnZillion Notes:
--”Quick Quiz” is an easy way to check for student understanding at the end of a lesson. On this slide, you’ll simply display 2 problems that are similar to the previous examples. That’s it! You won’t be recording a video of this slide and when teachers download the slides, they’ll direct their students through the example on their own so you don’t need to show an answer to the question.
I would revised questions to be the following:
How many books did you read this summer? V.
How many books did you read today?
We want to compare the variability of answers.

15. How can you create a statistical question that has variability?15

16. Yes or No.
When students write statistical questions, they often write questions with too few or too many answers and they don’t state who the population is.. “Do you like listening to music?” will only give you 2 possible answers – yes or no. Who is being asked this question? You might get different responses if you asked professional musicians than if you asked small children. 16

17. How can we take this same question and turn it into a statistical question?
Let’s begin by thinking about some of the answer choices we might want to hear. It might be interesting to hear all of the types of music 6th graders like, so we could rewrite the question to “What 6th graders’ favorite type of music?” or “How many hours per week do 6th graders listen to music?” or even “Who is Room 16’s favorite singer?” Any of these would probably give us the variability we are looking for and we are indicating who the population is that we plan to survey. 17

18. Variability is based on the word, “variable” which is something that changes. Variability is a way of describing how many different answers you hear and how the data appears. A question that gives only 2 answers has very little variability, but a question that gives 4 to 6 popular answers gives a good amount of variability and can make an interesting graph. 18

19. How many answers could you expect to hear if you asked 16 sixth graders at Lee Middle School this question, “What did you eat for dinner last night?” 19

20. Yikes! There are way too many different answers here and they all have 1 vote except for cheeseburgers which has 2. This question had too much variability because there are too many different answers. 20

21. Let’s change this question to give us a better amount of variability, which would be a few popular answers. We can start by thinking of a question about food that you think most people would agree on, such as school lunches. Most students have a couple of favorite meals, but not too many. Maybe you really like Mexican food and you want to know more specifically about the type of food you like. If we change the question to “What is the favorite Mexican food at Arnall Middle School?” we can expect to get a few popular answers and we know who we are asking. Notice how we didn’t change it to “Do you like Mexican food?” because that would only give us 2 answer choices. Each of these questions has good variability based on the answers we expect to hear. 21

22. Remember, to write a good statistical question, start with the answers you expect to hear and edit your question to get good variability. Remember to state the population, or who you plan to survey. 22

23. Try this problem now. Rewrite this question to make a statistical question. Remember to think of the answers first before writing the question. “Do you like dogs?” This question is about dogs, so maybe we should find all of the types of dogs that students like. The new question could be, “What is the favorite breed of dog among students at East Coweta Middle School?” You could also rewrite the question to say, “What types of pets do the students at East Coweta Middle School own?” That information will tell you if the students like dogs. 23

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26. LearnZillion Notes:
--”Quick Quiz” is an easy way to check for student understanding at the end of a lesson. On this slide, you’ll simply display 2 problems that are similar to the previous examples. That’s it! You won’t be recording a video of this slide and when teachers download the slides, they’ll direct their students through the example on their own so you don’t need to show an answer to the question.
I would revised questions to be the following:
How many books did you read this summer? V.
How many books did you read today?
We want to compare the variability of answers. 26